Over-rested in Columbus

September 10th was supposed to be the big day, out of the US and into Bolivia! Wrong. I made it to the airport and checked in with US Air no problem, then jaunted over to check in with American. The clerk gave me apprehensively surprised look and notified me that my flight was canceled due to civil unrest, grrrr.

What exactly does this mean? Well, the departments (comparable to a state) of Santa Cruz, Beni, and Pando do not want to be part of the country any longer, and the rest of Bolivia thinks they are being absurd, so there is a lot of tension. A rough sketched big picture is as follows...

Over the last few hundred years Bolivia has been run by various elite circles that do a good job keeping wealth to themselves. The past ruling classes have not put the interests of the majority first and subsequently there has arisen an abysmal rich-poor gap. Let me emphasize that distribution of wealth is very uneven. The country is roughly composed as follows: 60% indigenous, 30% Mestizo (Euro-indians), 10% European descent. Not surprisingly the European Bolivians have most of the money and have dominated the political system for most of Bolivia's history. Recently the Indigenous majority has realized success in organization and demanding representation in government, and they managed to suprize the world by electing an indigenous coca farmer, Evo Morales, as Bolivia's president in 2006.

Morales has made some significant changes since taking office, one of the bigger ones being the nationalization of many internationally owned and opperated gas/oil extraction opperations. He essenttially told foriegn investors to re-write their contracts so that Bolivia gained a substantially higher return on thier natural resource exports, or they would no longer be allowed to opperate in country. Large scale socialist reforms are a big part of his ticket and he is adamant about redistributing wealth from the wealthy 10-30% to the impovershed indigenous 60ish%. One of the main targets of this reform policy is the natural gas wealth in the Eastern Bolivian lowlands.

The lowlands consist of multiple departments (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando) that are fairly wealthy due to the large natural gas reserves in the region. The classic scenerio of few very wealthy people owning most of the land still exists throughout much of these departments, so Morales has decided to break up the land and doll it out to the poor. Morales also wants more of revenue from the natural gas to fatten federal coffers (for infrastructural improvments of some sort) instead of individual's wallets. As you might imaine, those who are profiting immensely off this land are not happy with such redistribution of thier wealth. The peoples of Santa Cruz and Pando are especially outspoken about such reforms and have proposed that they should be granted autonomy from Bolivia. Morales and his supporters (most of the Andean poor) don't respect such wishes so there has been a bit of a stand off over the past few months.

It heated up on September 9th when a natural gas pipeline blew up and a bunch of anti-government protests sparked in Santa Cruz. Morales sent troops in to quell the civil disorder but that doesn't seem to have done much. Various roits have arisen throughout the eastern part of the country since then, and law enforcement has effectively lost much sway over public order in a small number of places. Morales, wary of past seperatist movements in Nicaragua and Guatemala that were instigated by the USA, kicked out the US embassador on charges of helping to incite the riots (Chavez followed suit in Venezuela). Hondorus, Ecuador, Venezuela and Cuba openly support his decision. In response the US has kicked out Bolivia and Venezuela's ambassadors; they have not taken kindly to Chavez's threat to send troops to Bolivia if Morales turns up dead any time soon (neither has the Bolivian government).

Things turned tragic yesterday. In Pando anti-Morales protestors stormed into some pro-Morales reform policy demonstrators and shot 8 of them dead. Some 40 were injured. The dead were all indigenous and the shooters are supposedly part of some rampaging youth group that is unchecked by law enforcement. Morales responded by imposing Martial Law on Pando.

The situation's rapid and volitale shift has directed international attention to country. Much of Central and South America support Morales and his opposition to the country's division. The UN secretary general has offered to mediate discussions between opposition leaders and dialouge seems to be soon in comming as the governer of Pando has offered to to meet and discuss the situation with the Bolivian President.

More on this as it develops.

As of right now I am scheduled to leave for Bolivia on the 18th (my rescheduled flight for the 13th was canceled) and I'm sittin here in Columbus partaking in an enthralling combination of setting up my grad school application, transplanting plants, and twiddling my thumbs...